Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Confession: I find it almost impossible to read during daylight hours. In June, at a garage sale, I bought a lovely little pink chair with a matching ottoman. Price: $12. "This is my reading chair," I proclaimed. "From now on, I will sit in it and read during the day." Didn't work. Didn't, that is, until two novels appeared on my desk: "The Girls of August," by Anne Rivers Siddons and "Life Drawing," by Robin Black. Couldn't put them down. Daylight or not.

Leave it to Siddons of Charleston always to hatch a great plot. Four friends have been gathering for decades in August to spend a week somewhere along the coast. Ocean front and isolated. But this year, one of the four -- Melinda -- is dead. In her stead is Melinda's widower's new (very young, very fit, seemingly very needy) wife Baby. This year's locale -- a remote barrier island off the coast of South Carolina -- adds to the psychological combustion as each of these women makes a "startling discovery." During their stay,by the way, the four drink enough alcohol to embalm a whale. But it's a light, quick read and highly engaging.

I was tipped to Robin Black's "Life Drawing" when it showed up on the long list for this year's Flaherty-Dunnan first novel prize. Black lives in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Warren Wilson's MFA Writing program. So I was curious. Still, I had no idea I was in for one of the best reads in ages. This is my favorite kind of novel -- a literary page-turner, which, sadly, doesn't come along often enough. Black burrows under the mind's skin, articulating the things we're only vaguely aware of thinking. She's a painter. Her husband Owen is a blocked writer. They've moved to an old farmhouse in the country to try to put behind them Augusta's affair. Allison moves in next door. Augusta and Allison become quick friends. Owen becomes unblocked. The novel builds, builds, until it's practically on fire.

Dannye Romine Powell

Dannye Romine Powell

About this blog

Dannye Romine Powell has published three collections of poetry (University of Arkansas Press), and a non-fiction book, "Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers" (John Blair). Over her years at the Observer, she's served as book review editor, feature writer, restaurant critic and local news columnist. Count on her for news of Carolinas authors and write her at dpowell@charlotteobserver.com.